A-pickin’ we will go!

One of the many things that made me uncomfortable after we moved here was this insatiable desire I had for the seasons to change. No matter how angsty I felt about it, the temperature refused to lessen and the leaves refused to change. I’ve never lived in such a stubborn location. Therefore, I rebelled. I decided I couldn’t handle it, and that Fall was a necessity. If Pasadena couldn't provide, then we’d just have to go find it somewhere else! Hmpf! We gave it a good chance and waited until October, but Fall never showed. So, off we went!

I scouted out a farm about 1.5 hours east of us that had apple picking, pumpkin picking, carriage rides, hiking, a petting zoo, a cider press, hay bales to climb on, fresh pies to eat.. everything you need to remind yourself that in some parts of the country, it really is Fall. We picked a Saturday and went to find some Fall. And oh, was it wonderful.

Just the drive to the farm got me all worked up simply because there were trees that were a different color!

See the clouds? We were high and they were low - beautiful!

This farm also had grove of Redwood trees (or possibly Sequoias, because who can really remember these things? Oh.. maybe the kind of people that don’t try to write things down 6 months after they happened? Well.) and we got to walk right on through it.

It was just as magical as these things should be, for everyone involved.

We didn't even tell him to.. a natural-born tree-hugger!

We found a cute little bench, so we took some cute little pictures..

And even a family photo for the memory books!

We continued walking and found a lake! A lake of the beautiful and picturesque sort, all too tempting for the Short-Leggeds among us.

Our hike was stunning. Stunning and wonderful and naturey and not-sweltering. Everything I’d hoped for.

Well, we ran into a bit of trouble on our beautiful hike when we got a flat tire. Turns out there are lots of little burrs to be had in the woods that are not-little enough to poke holes right on through the inner tubes. So we re-routed our hike out to the road and plodded along, steadily uphill, wishing our children weren’t quite so heavy.

In an amazing turn of events, we discovered the local fire station (that the road we were walking along ran right passed) was having a bake sale! We didn’t buy anything, knowing that many good things awaited us back at the farm, but the bake sale meant there was a fire truck out and open for us to see! Aed was speechless with happiness. He loved it so much.

He was too excited to bother looking at the camera, so all the pictures look like this.

Then it was time for… apple picking! Joy of joys!

Did I mention it was a beautiful day?

We got to pick from any tree, and found that many trees had some amazing-looking apples way up high and out of reach. Ian then patented a new picking technique, pictured below.

Needless to say, the Picker loved it. The Non-Picker had quite a good time as well. (The mysterious arm there belongs to Ian's coworker, Peter. He came along with us and made the trip that-much-more enjoyable!)

Unfortunately, the apple orchard was full of those pesky burrs, so we flattened another tire, and by the time we got home, all three were flat! I spent the next days picking burs and prickers out of the tires and trying to fix up that buggy so we wouldn’t lose more inner tubes. Worth every prick.

Then the petting zoo..

Adorable.

And the hay bales..

And the occasional nap..

Which all led to enjoying the spoils of a proper Fall in our very own home where Fall refused to come.

I also supplemented with a spicy-sweet candle to give us the right aroma. It was a beautiful thing.

One last picture that I think is adorable.. the munchkin acting like he knows what to do with one of those.

He, of course, didn’t and got bored with it after about 5 seconds, but it made for a cute memory.

The day was absolutely wonderful, definitely one of my favorite memories of our time here in CA. Ian and I reminded each other many times of what a gift that day was, how thankful we were to have had it. It honestly was sweet refreshment to our souls. I have learned that changes of season are so important to me, figuratively and literally. I grow when challenged with something new, and this stage of life brings mostly new things. Change is good, welcomed or not, and I’m thankful that we had a time to revel in the beauty of a changing season. Just remembering that special day brings a sigh of relief and satisfaction. A good day.

A trip to the aquarium

We love animals. We love water. We love adventures! Naturally, a trip to the aquarium can only be fun, fun, fun!

We started with penguins. The best part about the penguin exhibit was not the penguins, obviously. It was the climbing! Our little climber had to be torn away from the steps in front of the penguins' window.

He may have noticed a few penguins, the jury's still out.

The big one, on the other hand, he was in the know. The steps sang a siren song to him as well, but he got a kick out of watching the pinguinos. He even got to stand right up next to one and pose with it! It was of the statue variety, so wasn't overly animated, but a three year old with ants in his pants is plenty of animation for a photograph. (and no, I'm sorry, the photograph is not included here. It's probably still on Daddy's iphone or something. These things happen. I'll try to get my act together.)

We moved on to a few other outdoor friends. Such as this little fellow..

He was so very tiny. And I don't honestly know what he is. He's like a miniature albino heron. That's the best I've got. But he wins for cuteness! (Well, in the birds-at-the-aquarium competition at least.)

He could never compare to THIS:

It's almost like the people at the Aquarium of the Pacific had Tiny People in mind when they designed this space.. so cool! And so fun! Even for Less Tiny People! (That's a look into the penguins' pool again, in case you were wondering.)

There were many wonders to discover inside as well. And, there were many reasons we were thankful that we weren't literally swimming with the fishes, but one of them was THIS:

This giant fish (it was definitely bigger than it looks in this picture) seemed very intent on getting to know our biggest Tiny Person. He STARED. He stared long time. Aed thought it was super awesome. And he was right. But I couldn't help wondering if the giant fish thought he looked like a tasty yellow morsel. :)

Also, very fun for the tactilely-driven among us, we got to touch sea urchins! And starfish! And they were weird and prickly and slightly in danger of being mangled by a one-year-old! The water was freezing, but it was so fun. 

Aed's favorite part, to this day, was the jellyfish. I think we could have watched the jellyfish for a very long time. He is very intrigued by sea-dwellers of all sorts (especially giant squids), but man, those jellyfish are extra special.

Sweet, sweet. 

We got to play on some boats and touch stingrays and sharks. And I'm pretty sure the usual fits were thrown when it was time to leave. But, we made up for it with a shrimpy dinner.. 

Mmm, mmm, good!

Making the same old living room a little more interesting..

Nothing some blankets, pillows, and chairs can't handle! :)

Just because..

Lovely Day for a Hike

Amidst those hot, sweaty days we had our first taste of what a cooler California can be like. Grey clouds blew in, it got cold enough to wear a light jacket, it even rained a bit. It was a reason to get out of the house and celebrate! I had a list of places that were good for a hike with a buggy, so I pulled it out and off we went.

Love that Asher's enthusiasm!

We found a little guided trail for kids and had a great time finding and learning about many different types of vegetation in this area.

A weaf, Mama! It's VEWY big!

And, we found great big leaves on the ground! He carried that thing around for a long time. :) It almost felt like it really was Autumn!

The view was gorgeous and we all managed to keep ourselves from touching any cactus plants. Also, there were no bears. Signs warned us that there could be bears moving through and I began to question the wisdom of hiking alone with my children. But, there were no prickles and no bears. Or snakes. Always pluses in my book!

hiking buddies #1 and #2

I hear tell of a few other areas that have buggy-friendly hiking. Can’t wait!

A Little Country Bumpkin

I love fairs!!! I super-duper love them. There were all kinds of country fairs in the area I grew up, and I loved going to the State Fair in the summer. I also always loved the Lammas Market that came to St Andrews every summer.

So, imagine my glee when I found out that there was a fair HERE! A fair to go to that would be huge and exciting and fun! The LA County Fair was in town, the biggest county fair ever, for little old me.

Then, things happened. Then the kids got sick. We were down to the wire with tickets to go and a feverish child and it was the last stinking day of the fair! Well, we threw them in the buggy and handled that fair like a boss with flushed cheeks. Priorities!

We saw the gobzillion people that attend such things.. We visited the barn full of animals.. (which included haystacks to jump on!)

We marveled at the insane number of meats you can skewer with a stick, and the size of them.. my goodness gracious, I could not believe the size of the servings! Insanity, I tell you! Hot dogs longer than my forearm. So wrong. And the legendary deep-fried options.. Not just twinkies and oreos, no. There was deep-fried watermelon and deep-fried cookie dough. Not to mention the deep-fried Kool Aid (I don’t even know..). I burst out laughing on a number of occasions when we walked passed yet another meat-on-a-stick stand.

As you can imagine, Aed wasn’t entirely enthusiastic. His fever had been on and off the day prior, and though he didn’t actually have a fever when we left for the fair, he definitely wasn’t 100%. Had he been 100%, he would have loved it, but as it stood, there wasn’t much he was impressed with from where he sat (though he did like anything that involved getting out and running away.. fevers be damned! There's no stopping him!). Then, suddenly I heard giggling. I kept trying to figure out what he was laughing at, but for the life of me, I had no idea. Then, I saw it.

He thought the log ride was hilarious to watch. He even insisted that he wanted to ride it! We stood there for quite a while indulging him in this hilarious pleasure. I really wanted to try the ferris wheel with him, but I just kept having visions of horrible endings and decided it wasn't worth it. Maybe next time :).

We heard that Cirque De Soleil was performing at the fair, so naturally I was intrigued. There was only one performance while we were there, which happened to be a show with lights.

It was pretty good, but it took us a while to find it, so we didn’t get seats. We also had restless boys who weren’t all that interested, so after a brief peek, we moved on. It was very cool to watch what we were able to see, though. :)

One of the last things we did was take Aed on the carousel. This in and of itself was kind of a nightmare. There was a line, and he wanted to go, then he didn’t want to go, then he threw a fit, then he wanted to go, you get the idea. Normally after that much trouble we’d just have said we’re done, but I knew he’d enjoy it and I knew he was tired, so we waited it out and he rode with Daddy.

The two grumpy gills..

Asher and I ate some snacks while we waited.. Turned out he did enjoy himself, and was glad he rode it! 

The very last thing we did was use up our game tokens! We had a bunch to use, so Daddy played lots of games to win Aed (and Asher, but he didn’t care as much) a plethora of animals to bring home.

I think we were glad we did it, trying to have some unique fun while we’re here, but we were all glad to head home. There were a lot of other high points that aren’t pictured, like a big room with fish tanks and a pirate and safari area.. there was seriously a lot to do. There was also, somewhere in the abyss, an area that was supposed to be Mr. Macgregor’s garden. We mentioned that to Aed, thinking he’d be excited, but soon learned that he harbored great fear of Mr. Macgregor and had absolutely no interest in having anything to do with it! Even when he found out he’d get to meet Peter Rabbit! I couldn’t believe it, but I was well convinced after hearing how much he didn’t want to go.. over and over and over. Such a funny boy.

Asher is in the buggy.. poor thing didn't get a single cameo!

So we took our sleepy selves home and knew we had made some memories. This was really our first fair experience together as a family. I definitely think it will be more fun as the kids get older (and more expensive!), but it was a great trial run. :)

Playschool

Something that has been so great for us to be involved in here is Playschool. Playschool is every Tuesday morning for our little Preschoolers. My understanding is that it is a co-op, but I can’t say I know anything about how a co-op works. :) It is organized through Fuller, and we are so thankful for it!

Basically it is structured so that there are three groups of kids that rotate to different stations during the morning. There is outside play, which has been anything from water toys to games with flour to playing with beans and pasta. There is also a painting option, but my boys tend to be too interested in the other option (i.e. running around or making a mess :).

Water play

Flour play (that was seasoned with lovely smelling baby oil!)

Playing with glass beads..

and letters!

Another station is indoor play. This is things like parachute games, tunnels, a trampoline, and bean bags. Not to mention balls galore. Asher tends to be a risk-taker, throwing himself over the balls (these are bigger, exercise-type balls) and standing on the rolling scooters. You know, anything to make Mama nervous.

But his personal favorite all year has been these little roped buckets.

There is a string of about 6 of them and he loooves walking across them over and over. Today they even turned into a train carrying all sorts of ‘goods’ around the room.

There are all kinds of things to experience with indoor play, and my favorite thing is that we have almost none of it at home. It is always a new experience for them, which means they are always excited!

The last station is Circle Time/Craft. Circle time involves singing and reading stories about the monthly themes. The craft tends to be related to the theme or a nearby holiday. Both boys do pretty well, but nothing much would be crafted without some help and encouragement from Mama. :) Though I do try to keep my hands out of it, and they are both getting better at using glue sticks.

These pumpkins were made around Thanksgiving, and they even have real pumpkin seeds on the other side! Just today the boys made Valentine wreaths that are hanging on our door.

Another favorite time during Playschool is snack time! There’s a variety of fruit and snacks available, and snack time at Playschool was Asher’s first experience sitting by himself in a 'big' chair! So cute!

This is from the very first day. Both boys were pretty confused, but they knew what to do during snack time!

Playschool also begins and ends with group singing and a prayer. It’s been so great to watch both of them as they’ve grown through this experience. Asher’s early experiences were difficult because he was still taking a morning nap. Going that long without a sleep was stretching, but now the nap is gone and he is full-throttle at Playschool! Aed’s early experiences were punctuated with fits as he learned how to be a part of a structured activity, having to leave things he really wanted to do for the sake of things he didn’t know he wanted to do :). He has changed so much from the beginning! He is such a good listener and easily changes from one station to another. It’s been great for sharing to be emphasized in another setting, as well as for him to see that sometimes it’s ok if things aren’t fair. General lessons learned when you’re spending lots of time with lots of other children, from several different cultures. :) It’s not always smooth-sailing, but I am so thankful for this opportunity for us during the week!

We do lots of different play at home too, and I thought this one was fitting to go along with playschool.. I often let Aed play with his trucks and beans. He loves it! I thought it would be a good distraction while I tried to take a shower when both boys were up.. especially since we don’t have a shower door which means they are always trying to get in. It worked for a few minutes, but made a huge mess! The shower was successful and the boys had fun, but admittedly, I haven’t gone this route since – ha!